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Monday, September 29, 2014

The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are locked into a
propaganda war with public relations agencies and front organizations as
proxies that is backfiring on both Gulf states.

Disclosures of the proxy war have hit Qatar at a time that
its image as the host of the 2022 World Cup is under renewed fire. In contrast
to Qatar, the UAE has sought to counter revelations about its efforts to shore
up its image through the creation of a network of human rights groups and negatively
influence international media coverage of Qatar by touting the fact that its
lead fighter pilot in allied attacks on the Islamic State, the jihadist group
that controls a swath of Iraq and Syria, is a woman.

Tension between long-standing rivals Qatar and the UAE has
been mounting for more than a year.

The UAE has detained and/or sentenced Qatari
nationals on charges of espionage, one of which has been dubbed a prisoner of
conscience by Amnesty International. It also earlier this year withdrew its ambassador
to Doha alongside the envoys of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The rupture in diplomatic
relations was part of a so far failed effort to force Qatar to halt its support
for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The UAE, whose animosity towards Qatar predates the current
multiple crises in the Middle East and North Africa, kicked into high gear with
the realization that Qatar may make minor concessions but was unlikely to bow
to Gulf pressure.

Qatar earlier this month asked several Muslim Brothers to
leave the country in a nominal gesture but has not cancelled their residence
permits. Moreover, family members of some of the departed Brothers remain
resident in Qatar as does Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, one of the world’s most
prominent Muslim clerics who has close ties to the Brotherhood. Similarly,
Qatar has rejected pressure to expel Khalid Mishal, the leader of Hamas, the
Islamist militia with close ties to the Brotherhood that controls the Gaza
Strip.

The UAE is waging its proxy war against the backdrop of its
adoption of a more activist foreign policy that aims to counter political
Islam. The UAE took the lead in recent weeks in confronting the Brotherhood and
other Islamists with air attacks on Islamist forces in Libya in cooperation
with the Gulf-backed Egyptian government of general-turned-president Abdul
Fattah al Sisi. At home, alleged Brothers were sentenced to lengthy prison
terms in legal proceedings that have been condemned by human rights groups.

At the same time, the UAE has been touting its image as a
forward-looking, progressive Muslim society by emphasizing the fact that a
woman, Maj. Mariam al-Mansouri, led the UAE squadron in recent US-led attacks
on Islamic State targets in Syria. Photos of Ms. Al-Mansouri released by WAM,
the state-run Emirati news agency, went viral on social media. They highlighted
the fact that the UAE is one of the few Arab states to include women in its
military and allow them to rise to prominence.

As with much of its response to widespread international
criticism, Qatar’s response to the campaign against it has been a combination
of too little too late, less willingness than its opponents to engage highly
priced public relations agencies and lobbyists, and bungled efforts of its own
to influence media coverage. The Qatari effort has been further stymied by the recent
designation as international terrorists by the US Treasury of four men with
links to the Gulf state accused of fundraising for jihadist groups. Qatari
sources say at least two of the men had been arrested prior to their
designation.

The weak Qatari counteroffensive got into further hot water
with revelations last week by Britain’s Channel 4 that Qatar had engaged Portland
Communications founded by Tony Allen, a former adviser to Tony Blair when he
was prime minister. Channel 4 linked Portland to the creation of a soccer blog
that attacked Qatar’s detractors by Alistair Campbell, Mr. Blair’s chief
communications advisor at Downing Street Number Ten and a former member of
Portland’s strategic council.

Channel 4 accused the blog that projected itself as “truly
independent” and claimed to represent “a random bunch of football fans,
determined to spark debate” of “astro-turfing,” the creation of fake sites that
project themselves as grassroots but in effect are operated by corporate
interests. Portland admitted that it had helped create the blog but asserted
that it was not part of its engagement with Qatar.

The UAE has been waging its propaganda war on multiple
levels. In July, the UAE backed the establishment of the Muslim Council of
Elders (MCE) in a bid to counter Sheikh Qaradawi’s International Union of
Muslim Scholars as well as Qatar’s support for political change in the Middle
East and North Africa as long as it does not include the Gulf. The MCE promotes
a Sunni Muslim tradition of obedience to the ruler rather than activist elements
of the Salafis who propagate a return to 7th century life as it was
at the time of the Prophet Mohammed and his immediate successors.

The UAE’s efforts to tarnish Qatar’s image contrast starkly
with its official support for Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup. The Emirate’s targeting
of Qatar’s hosting became evident with this month’s detention in Qatar of two
British human rights activists who were investigating human and labour rights
in the Gulf state. Their detention also highlighted Emirati efforts to shape
international public opinion in response to mounting criticism of the UAE’s own
human and labour rights record.

The detentions exposed a network of Emirati-backed human
rights groups in Norway and France that seemingly sought to polish the UAE’s
image while tarnishing that of Qatar. The Brits of Nepalese origin were acting on
behalf of the Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), a Norway-based
group with alleged links to the UAE.

Established in 2008 "to enhance and support both human
rights and development by adopting new strategies and policies for real
change," GNRD is funded by anonymous donors to the tune of €3.5 million a
year, according to veteran Middle East journalist and author Brian Whitaker.

The group’s International Human Rights Rank Indicator (IHRRI)
listed the UAE at number 14 as the Arab country most respectful of human rights
as opposed to Qatar that it ranked at number 94. The ranking contradicts
reports by human rights groups, including the United Nations Human Rights
Council (OHCHR), which earlier this year said it had credible evidence of
torture of political prisoners in the UAE and questioned the independence of
the country’s judiciary. Egypt’s State Information Service reported in December
that GNRD had supported the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist
organization and called for an anti-Brotherhood campaign in Europe.

An Emirati human rights activist told Middle East Eye: “They
are supported by the UAE government for public relations purposes. The GNRD
published a fake human rights index last year that wrongly praised the UAE.”

More recently, The New York Times and The Intercept revealed
that the UAE, the world’s largest spender on lobbying in the United States in
2013, had engaged a lobbying firm to plant anti-Qatar stories in American media.
The firm, Camstoll Group, is operated by former high-ranking US Treasury
officials who had been responsible for relations with Gulf state and Israel as
well as countering funding of terrorism.

The successful effort to portray Qatar as a prime backer of
jihadist terrorists coincided with a similar campaign by Israel calling for
Qatar to be deprived of its right to host the World Cup because of its support
for Hamas. The campaign is designed to counter Qatari efforts, according to
Palestinian sources, to coax Hamas into accepting full-fledged peace talks with
Israel and agreeing to surrender much of its authority in Gaza to the Palestine
Authority headed by Hamas rival, President Mahmoud Abbas.

The New York Times reported that Camstoll’s public
disclosure forms “filed as a registered foreign agent, showed a pattern of
conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of
Qatar’s role in terrorist fund-raising.” The Intercept asserted that Camstoll was
hired less than a week after it was established in late 2012 by Abu Dhabi-owned
Outlook Energy Investments, LLC with a retainer of $400,000 a month.

“The point here is not that Qatar is innocent of supporting
extremists… The point is that this coordinated media attack on Qatar – using
highly paid former U.S. officials and their media allies – is simply a weapon
used by the Emirates, Israel, the Saudis and others to advance their agendas,”
The Intercept said.

UAE opposition to Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood dates
back at least a decade. Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Armed Forces Chief of Staff
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Zayed Al Nahayan warned US diplomats already in 2004
that "we are having a (culture) war with the Muslim Brotherhood in this
country,” according to US diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks. In 2009.
Sheikh Mohamed went as far as telling US officials that Qatar is "part of
the Muslim Brotherhood." He
suggested that a review of Al Jazeera employees would show that 90 percent were
affiliated with the Brotherhood. Other
UAE officials privately described Qatar as “public enemy number 3”, after Iran
and the Brotherhood.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of
Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile